


i just ask you to be patient

by uniformly (scramjets)



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28846605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scramjets/pseuds/uniformly
Summary: It takes a little while for Leckie to figure out what Runner’s doing at his front door. It takes Leckie even longer to figure out everything else.
Relationships: Wilbur "Runner" Conley/Robert Leckie
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	i just ask you to be patient

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carlough](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carlough/gifts).



> This fic was titled: _leckie, a disaster, a story_ , for the year and a bit it was in my files. The actual/current title is a line from _The Heart is a Muscle_ by Gang of Youths: _and I just ask you to be patient / if you’ll have me still_ , because this is Leckie we're talking about.
> 
> Massive thanks to Shannon for looking over this fic for me ♥♥. I might have shifted canon a little bit to make things work, you know how it is. All mistakes are my own. As always, based on the HBO representation.

+

Runner turned up one day. Bag in hand, apologetic smile on face, “I was in the area,” offered to Leckie with a one shouldered shrug. He stood on the porch of Leckie’s childhood home, as much in place as he was out of it. But since Leckie only really knew him in the context of war, he didn’t know what to do with him. They weren’t in uniform, and not on the other side of the world. They were in Leckie’s neighbourhood with the distinct sound of children shouting in backyards around them, and the soft rumble of cars on the road. No roar of guns or plane engines, no groans of dying men, or shrieking artillery.

Leckie had his hand still on the doorknob, and was already in the motion of pulling the door shut before he pushed it open again. The small breeze of it disturbed the leaves on the porch and Runner’s expression creased up.

“Were you about to slam the door on me?”

“No.” Leckie said it automatically, too stunned to really feel sorry.

The sensation crept up on him later, while he was introducing him to his parents, telling them, “This is Wilbur Conley, he served with me,” before hanging back as his mother offered lemonade, and while his father grunt out something inconsequential and unrelated. 

Were you about to slam the door on me, remembered with the expression of Runner’s face, the confusion and surprise set into his smile. It turned in Leckie’s stomach, made his skin hot, watching as his mother insisted on the lemonade, and as Runner went with her, glancing over to him as he disappeared in the kitchen.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Leckie said later, once they were holed up in his bedroom, papers and books piled up on every surface. 

“It’s fine,” Runner said, “I can move it.”

It took a second before Leckie figured out what he was talking about. Less what had happened at the front door, and more that Runner currently sat on the edge of his desk chair, otherwise piled up with books Leckie had set there earlier while looking for something else. Leckie wanted to tell him, No, I was talking about my parents, about the door, but found he couldn’t quite cough the words up.

So he cleared his throat instead, and glanced aside. Runner was still there when he looked back, in his house and in his room, sitting on his chair in civilian clothes. He wore nice trousers, a blue button up shirt. He looked good, healthy, whole, his dark hair flopping across his forehead that he kept pushing back like a physical tic, almost, while he talked about inconsequential things, as if picking up a conversation they’d shared months ago. 

Leckie tried to find his place in it, mind skipping back to the medical ship, the hospital, to even before then; the memories blurred, missing pieces, before it all settled to Runner leaning to him and asking if he wanted a coffee. He’d smelled like soap and cigarettes in that moment, not like blood and dirt and gunpowder, like when he’d left him, propped up against the shell of an airplane. 

Leckie swallowed and turned away, eyes catching the house across the street, the porch shaded by the trees and empty, the door shut. 

“How’re you doing anyway, Leckie,” Runner asked him then, and Leckie looked back at him, finding Runner no longer on the chair but at his shelves, cluttered with not only his own things, but also tid-bits and knick-knacks his parents never found room for elsewhere. 

Runner picked up a heavy slowglobe, and the glass shone in the faint light as he turned it and sent the snow everywhere, foaming up and all around the small reindeer inside. 

“That’s a sister’s,” Leckie heard himself say, and Runner laughed, the sound brighter and lighter than Leckie recalled, and he said, “You worried about what I’d think about you or something?”

The snowglobe made a sound when Runner set it back on the shelf, and his exploration continued, finding Leckie’s old books, old notebooks, other slips of paper, comics; little things he’d kept and that he’d forgotten about until Runner pulled it out to study, to turn it over in his hands as if he was trying to understand every angle. 

After a while of this, Leckie left him to it, moving back to the window to light up a cigarette, aiming the smoke outside. The breeze was crisp and cool, and the leaves on the trees were starting to take on the colour of autumn, green giving way to browns and yellows. Soon the days would grow long, and the sky would cloud over, and with any luck there’d be some snow. 

Leckie ashed the cigarette outside, finished it off just as Runner reached the end of his survey, glancing back to Leckie with something indecipherable on his face. It was unnerving to see, in a way, forcing Leckie to look aside, back at the house across the street and its empty, quiet porch. 

He’d tensed up, Leckie realised, waiting for Runner to say something, come to some conclusion about him, laugh at the sentimental things he’d kept, or at the awkward, clumsy articles he’d written back in school, big words fit in where a smaller one would do. I’m better at that now, Leckie wanted to say to him, and maybe he’d offer the half written report still at the typewriter, his notebook propped up beside it, riddled with his shorthand.

“I got your letters,” Runner said, finally. 

There was something about his voice, too, different from what Leckie remembered. More serious? Wry? Or maybe it was simply how Wilbur Conley spoke, always on the verge of laughing, like he was sharing some joke or secret that he’d forgotten to let Leckie in at first. 

The letters, when they’d started, had been something close to perfunctory. News about Chuckler and Hoosier, the polite, ‘hope everything’s okay, and you’ve settled in well’s, a smattering of news and updates, Leckie’s job, and then Runner’s. He’d never really seen Runner’s handwriting before, the tight loops and short, sharp lines. He’d seen him scratch out letters sometimes in the galley of the ships hauling them from one spit of land to another, catching sight of him hunched over, smoking a cigarette, writing with the pencil he’d asked off him earlier, “hey, Lucky, can I borrow that for a real quick second,” those real quick seconds sometimes adding up to an hour or more. 

Those letters had become longer over time, only to fade in frequency and length. A sense of guilt stirred, Leckie overly aware of the letter from Runner he’d meant to respond to, and had consequently set aside due to this deadline, and that deadline, all of them passing by.

“Yeah?” he said, finally, casually, thinking maybe that Runner had grown sick of waiting for a response, and had come to the source itself for answers. 

Leckie supposed he should feel aggrieved by it, a little exasperated, and he nodded to the desk, the typewriter and all of his papers, less neat than he’d wanted it, books still piled on the chair, and said, “It’s been busy.”

The annoyance or exasperation never did fully form, though it was there below whatever it was on the surface. The familiarity of Runner’s face, Leckie supposed, or the novelty of seeing him move around the clutter of his room, his curiosity more interesting than anything else, making Leckie wonder what Runner was looking for, and making him think he’d show him, if he’d asked. He drifted over, coming to stand opposite Runner in front of the cluttered bookcase. He smelled like lemons.

“Yeah,” Runner said. “It’s been busy. For Hoosier, too. And Chuck. It’s good to be busy. I like it.”

There was that note in his tone again, earnest and offhand all at once, clearly waiting for him to pick up on something Leckie wasn’t wholly in on. He remembered the ship again, the scent of the hospital on Runner’s skin, the unpleasant, messy heave of emotions in him that had cumulated into the pressing urgency of needing to be outside. 

What is it, Leckie wanted to ask him. But instead he glanced outside again, to where the leaves obscured, from this angle, the house across the street.

+

Somehow Runner had ended up staying for dinner. Leckie couldn’t remember if he’d asked him to stay, or if his mother did, but he supposed it hadn’t mattered. Dinner was strained and awkward either way. His father had looked at Runner across the table and asked him who he was again, but his mother had tried, asking Runner how he was doing, and if he was seeing any nice ladies. Runner shot Leckie a look, like he was holding back a laugh. Leckie returned the look, if just to smother the confusion, and returned to his yellow coloured green beans and mash.

“No, ma’am,” he heard Runner say, but if it was a response to the question about the nice ladies or a job, or if he had any plans here in Rutherford, Leckie didn’t know. 

“Where are you staying,” Leckie asked, mostly to get some kind of upper hand on him.

Runner gave him a look and shrugged, indifferent to the question, said something about finding a room to rent for the night. He wasn’t there for long, he said, maybe a couple of days, only for the weekend, and then he’d head back home.

“We have a spare room,” his mother said on cue, and Leckie glanced across to Runner again, who for once wasn’t looking at him, but at his mother.

There was a note of embarrassment on his face, which Leckie hadn’t really seen before, so it was funny that he recognised it at all; the small, not-quite-smile before he said, “Oh it’s fine, Mrs. Leckie, I saw a place earlier advertising a spare room.”

Leckie wanted to cut in and say that they were used to sleeping anywhere, in dugouts, backs pressed against packed dirt, the smell of plant matter and damp around them, so thick it filmed the tongue; or in a bag on the ground like they had in Melbourne, the morning cold and foggy, taking all of them by surprise with how cold it got in Australia, the gum trees like spectres in the pallid morning sun. 

His mother insisted, and that wore Runner down eventually, and that embarrassed smile was flicked to him with a small shrug that said, ‘guess that happened’, or, ‘what was I supposed to do?’. Leckie raised his brow in response, trying not to smile, though if it was because Runner had floundered for once, or because he was going to be there, sleeping in one of his sister’s rooms, now empty but still full of their things, Leckie couldn’t quite tell. 

Dinner finished up not long after, with not much more complaints from his father, or questions from his mother, and Runner helped with the clean up, taking the dishes back to the kitchen while he said it was fine, he was used to it. Leckie told him later, once everything was clean, and once there were new sheets on Runner’s made up bed, saying that he was making him look bad. 

Runner wasn’t really one to care about laughing right in front of him, so Leckie had to wait until he was done.

“I should’ve closed the door on you,” he said.

Runner was still grinning at him, and the annoyance melted out of Leckie despite his attempts to hold onto it. 

“You wouldn’t have,” Runner said. 

Leckie allowed silence to gather between them before he said, “No,” the word coming with a slow smile.

Runner scoffed, and laughed at him. “I thought so.”

They cluttered back into Leckie’s room, the lights dimmed out saved for the one overlooking the desk. It took him by surprise somewhat, having expected Runner to turn in for the night, expecting Runner to want some time to himself, and sleep early after a day of travel. He’d half wondered if Runner would go through all of his sisters’ things in the same methodical way he’d done his room, but dismissed it almost immediately, doubting Runner to find the same sort of interest in their belongings, barely knowing them.

His sisters’ rooms were a clutter of books, photos, diaries, charms, and trinkets. There were statuettes of the saints and the odd rosary draped across the front of bibles, or hanging off a pin in the wall. Runner would, if anything, run his eye across it all the same way he’d glanced at the living room, at the dining room, a polite interest that anyone had in a different environment to their own, and any questions would be presented maybe in the morning over breakfast, “Why was that there,” and Leckie would tell him the story of it.

But Runner had come with him to his bedroom, had taken up residence by the window, and there he lit up a cigarette, copying Leckie in the way he expelled the smoke outside earlier, the clouds of it disappearing into the damp cool. Leckie should’ve been irritated at the break in his routine and the lack of privacy. 

But the irritation wasn’t there, and how would it form, really, Leckie supposed, seeing as this was familiar more than anything else. Runner smoking and quiet, shifting here and there while Leckie worked. The only real difference was the lack of the jungle around them, the lack of a pencil in hand, the smell of autumn in the air instead of leaf rot and claggy mud, uniform heavy with rainwater.

The keys of his typewriter clipped in a steady rhythm, and Runner seemed to fade away altogether as the article Leckie worked on took shape. At his back he heard Runner say something, and Leckie hummed in response. Then he sat back, minutes or hours later, work done, eyes stinging and ears ringing, a familiar ache in the small of his back and along his shoulders where he’d hunched close to the paper to squint at what he wrote. His mother sometimes checked in on him while he worked, turning on the ceiling light and saying that he needed to have his eyes looked at. But she hadn’t appeared that night. Leckie read over what he wrote, and, satisfied for now, he pushed out of his chair, ready to collapse into bed.

He hadn’t banked on someone already being there in it. Leckie stopped short and cursed. Runner, if not hunched in a dug out, tended to sleep on his stomach. Back on Pavuvu, he’d drop into a rack on his back, then shift to his side in half sleep, before ultimately ending up face down. It was an entire noisy process which had shaken up the cot, making the legs squeak and groan. Runner was usually the first out of all of them, and then Chuckler would laugh and move to drape a sheet over him while Hoosier rolled his eyes. 

Leckie looked at him now, Runner on his stomach on his bed. He’d removed his shoes, at least, but he was still sprawled out, one hand draped over the side. 

“Conley,” Leckie said, quietly at first before he caught himself, thinking how useless it was to be whispering when he wanted to wake him. “Conley,” Louder now.

He couldn’t believe it, that he was standing at the foot of his own bed and watching as someone else slept there. Fatigue pressed up against him, and Leckie was half tempted to shove Runner aside and climb in anyway, no different to how they’d slept together in those dugouts, practically on top of one another, with knees pressing against sides, elbows tucked in tight, heads coming to rest against shoulders. 

But in the end Leckie scrubbed his hands down his face and moved to the room next door, his sisters’, still smelling faintly of rose perfume and pressed powder though they’d all long since moved out, and he crashed out on the fresh clean sheets not meant for him and slept the whole night through.

+

Runner had, at least, the decency to look embarrassed about it the next morning, fresh out of the shower and already dressed. He’d shrugged and said, “Sorry, Lucky. It kinda just happened. I was really beat, you know.” Though if Leckie didn’t know any better he was laughing about the entire thing as well.

It wasn’t until breakfast that Leckie saw the fatigue on him, the smudges of purple beneath his eyes, present despite the talk Runner kept up. The morning sun came in through the window, framing Runner in the light, dust motes floating around him as he buttered his bit of toast, and said something about soft mattresses. Then he bit into the bread and looked at him, his expression serene in a way that reminded Leckie of Ivy League balancing a crate of Red Label on his knees, telling him to keep low about the cigars and moccasins. 

Leckie had to wonder who was who in this case. If Runner was telling him to keep low, something bigger balanced in his hands, or him, with a box of cigars tucked under his arm, one corner of it digging below his ribs. Who, Leckie thought, had the more precious cargo?

Runner had turned up late Friday, and now on Saturday morning, Leckie took him out to show him his haunts. That’s where he worked, that’s where he bought cigarettes, here’s where to get a decent burger and a beer. This was the bookshop he checked in on when he had the chance, there were the sports fields, and up there was where he usually sat to watch.

“It’s funny,” Runner said, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, sunlight slanting across his face as they meandered back to Leckie’s. A breeze brought the smell of dying flowers and turning leaves on it, crisp and chill, ruffling their hair. Not much longer, maybe a couple weeks more, there’d be the scent of smoking wood from chimneys. “I’d pictured it all in my head when you were reading those letters, but it feels all backwards.”

“Letters?”

“Yeah,” Runner glanced at him sidelong, a curious something on his face. “You don’t remember your letters? I remember them, talking about Guadalcanal and Pavuvu, about this all being over by Christmas. You mentioned the St. Mary’s in one of them, after you enlisted or before, something like that.”

Leckie was there again, a few years ago and bumping into Vera at the entrance of St. Mary’s, everything softened by snow, their breath steaming in the frigid air as they talked. It was strange to think of himself all the way back then, hoping that Vera would be impressed as if her feelings on him leaving would stymie his uncertainties, or turn them into a further resolve; trying to let her know that he really did mean to send her letters, and then maybe she’d write back and by the end of the war he’d know her, and then. And then the memory faded, leaving behind a sense of self awareness, and traces of embarrassment for being so naïve. 

“I suppose it would.” Leckie said it just to say something, already anticipating the next question.

But it never came, and he relaxed a little, although not entirely, and for the rest of the walk Leckie found himself catching glimpses of Runner beside him, between drags from his cigarette, and comments about nothing in particular, wondering why he hadn’t asked about it yet. About how it had all worked out with Vera.

+

After dinner Leckie herded Runner into the spare room, turning them right instead of left to his bedroom door. He’d meant to leave straight after, wanting to finish off some writing before work on Monday, or give into the exhaustion he could never quite shake off. But Leckie found himself leaned up against the open window of his sisters’ room, the garden quiet and dark below and beyond, angling smoke out as they talked.

Runner wore a pair of dark jeans that day, paired with a plain white tee. He’d cuffed the sleeves up, and sometimes when he moved, when he reached for something, when he gestured a certain way, Leckie caught sight of the glossy scar tissue at his bicep. Seeing it sent an ugly wave of feeling through him, not being able to find a corpsman, the image of Runner laid up against the plane, face too pale, eyes too dark. And then he remembered coming to in the bowels of the hospital ship, with the smell of blood and steel and sea water all around him, turning his stomach, head throbbing, agony all through his ribs. 

The memory left a sour taste in his mouth, and it must have sent him quiet, because Runner, lounging on the bed, leaned forward and asked him, “Hey, you good?”

Leckie ashed his cigarette, and considered the embers. He felt too sick now to finish it off, so he ground it out in the ashtray he’d brought in with him. Then he shrugged his shoulders and gave Runner an intentionally crooked smile, pushing off the window sill to escape to his room, a goodnight ready in his throat. 

But intent wavered, and he found himself considering the room instead. The scuffed wallpaper, the ragged bits of sticky tape left up on the walls one holding up snapshots, and papers torn from magazines. The old powdery smell had since disappeared, aired out and overwhelmed by their cigarettes. His sisters would complain, of course, though they’d moved out years ago, and had found jobs, gotten married, done the whole thing. 

Runner didn’t necessarily look out of place in it all, here in the house, here in these childhood rooms, like he’d been someone Leckie had met in school, and they had split their time, sometimes hanging out at his house, and other times over at Runner’s. Growing up they would’ve traded the backyard games for long rides on bikes, meeting up with other neighbourhood kids, getting into fights, trying out cigarettes for the first time. 

Remember the Peleliu airfields, Leckie wanted to say. The feeling came out of nowhere. I’d never been so fucking scared.

“I asked Vera out on a date,” he said instead.

“Yeah?” Runner said. “How’d that go?”

Leckie shrugged, remembering how he’d played with the cutlery while wishing for a cigarette, the silver cool and heavier than he’d expected. He recalled the feel of the heavy tablecloth, and the soft music and soft lighting around them. Him in his dress blues, the fabric stiff and very smooth, unworn before that night.

“Got another one lined up?” Runner asked.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Leckie aimed for offhand, but he wasn’t sure if it came out that way. 

Maybe it would’ve been easier telling this to Hoosier, who’d tell him to grow a pair and try again or something, maybe shrug and hand him a packet of flattened Lucky Strikes if he was feeling particularly generous. Chuckler would’ve set a large hand at his shoulder, would have shaken him a little, companionable and encouraging in turn. 

Runner was polite despite his curiosity, which was non-existent before this point considering how many letters meant for Vera he’d been witness to. He should’ve asked earlier about her, Leckie felt, wondering why he’d even mentioned it himself. He could have side-stepped this whole conversation altogether, and be back in his room already with Vera less in the forefront of his thoughts.

“Maybe next time, huh,” Runner said, finally.

Leckie started to agree, but found himself hesitating, turning his lighter over and over in his hands. 

It was one of those things, he supposed, falling for the daydream than the person. Like Vera had said herself, seated across the small table, beautiful in her dress, her dark hair knotted on her head, the music barely louder than the hum over conversation around him, practically another world, “But you don’t know me.” He didn’t.

Leckie said, “Maybe next time,” wondering, as he spoke, if he meant it.

+

Runner left on Sunday, managing to wrangle a promise to write more before shaking his hand, and sliding into the cab. Leckie watched the car disappear down the street, wondering what he’d do or say if it stopped, threw a u-turn, and came back. _Thought you left, Conley_. Or maybe, _That was quick_ , though he’d be careful not to sound like his father when he said it. More smug than sniping.

Or perhaps Runner had left something behind. Some shirt he liked, or his shoes, or hell, his entire bag, still standing on the porch step because he’d been too busy telling him to write more. _You talk too much, Conley_ , he could tell him. But the cab continued on, turned a corner, and then was gone. 

Leckie didn’t know what he was expecting when Runner left. Probably nothing, really, he’d just see him off and then turn and walk up the porch. But he stood there on the sidewalk, staring up the length of the street, his thoughts muddled together. Sometimes thinking about Vera, the way his heart had beat in his chest as he strode up the stairs to knock on the Keller’s front door, all dressed up in his blues. Or about how he’d told Runner, and how he’d asked if he was going to try again. 

He thought about how Runner looked in civilian clothes, and how it suited him better than the service greens. He thought that maybe he should’ve said something after all. That it was good to see him again, that he looked well, or that he looked like shit, and then clap him on the back, just as Runner would’ve said, “Shut the hell up, Leckie. I’m the best looking guy here,” careful to leave space for Leckie to either jokingly agree, or put up an argument.

The sun bore down on him, and Leckie swiped at a bead of sweat rolling down his neck, shoving back the memories of those islands as he did. The pressing heat, the sun, the humidity, his sweat drenched uniform, falling apart at the seams because of the salty air. 

“Hey,” Runner had said to him once on Pavuvu, back before or maybe even after malaria and the humiliation of enuresis. “You want to go to the beach? Hear it’s good this time of year.” 

Leckie tried to remember what he’d said. If he’d passed Runner a look, critical and a little mean, or if he’d said something, a flat, ‘no’, or, ‘later’, before lighting up another cigarette and breathing in the smoke. Runner had hauled himself up off his rack, tossed an empty pack of Lucky Strikes at him, and said, “I’ll bring you back a souvenir, as long as you write me a letter.”

Runner had returned in an hour, dripping with sea water and sunburned across his nose and shoulders, bright pink settled over his olive tan. He’d looked pleased though, collapsing onto his rack and immediately falling into a conversation with Hoosier. He hadn’t asked about the letter, and Leckie hadn’t mentioned it. He hadn’t pulled it out from where he’d tucked it in his tin alongside the ones he’d written for Vera. He hadn’t handed it over.

Standing on the sidewalk, hot from the sun, Leckie wondered what he’d written in the end. He couldn’t remember, so he penned it all again in his head.

_Runner_ , this new letter started. _You’ve been gone all of ten minutes, and that’s barely enough time to either forget you or miss you. Maybe if you were gone a little longer, I’d reconsider._

_Leckie._

+

The first letter came shortly after. His mother had left it on his desk beside his typewriter, and Leckie had opened it and read the greeting before realising who it was from. _Dear Peaches_. Shit.

Leckie dropped the letter back on the desk, stripped out of his jacket, found his cigarettes and lit up. That sorted, he took the page again, moving to the window to read it, hip pressed against the window sill. The ‘Dear Peaches’ was followed by a stream of information and news, longer than anything he’d received from Runner in any of his letters. It covered the front and back of two pages, and finished on a tangent about Runner being small, and stealing fresh peaches. Not from the kitchen or the shops, or anything like that, but when they’d been out somewhere -- Runner also admitted that the memory was spotty, with only patches of sunlight and the weight of the fruit in his hands -- and he’d stolen them. 

If Runner stood in the room, and told the story himself, Leckie would have laughed at him. Early criminal proclivities, he’d say. But he wasn’t, and all Leckie had were these pieces of paper with Runner’s writing scrawled all over them, and smudges of something at the corner, like he’d sat at a table and wrote with a cigarette, ash falling on the page, making him swear and pause to swipe it off. 

The letter finished off with, ‘write me back’, and Leckie folded the pages back along the creases and tucked them inside the envelope. The cigarette he’d started had long since finished, though the smell of it still hung in the room, all the air from outside coming in and settling so that the scent didn’t get swept away. 

Leckie glanced across the street, not really thinking about what he was looking at before realising his focus had settled on the Keller household again, and he braced, expecting that tired, familiar ring of thoughts: the date, the aftermath, the concept of trying again. But it didn’t eventuate, or rather it did, but only faintly, barely a wave on the shore. 

He pushed off the window and moved across the room, pulling a book off the shelf. Inside was a sheaf of envelopes and letters. They started off in a variety of ways: Evening Cobber, Hey there Professor, Lucky, save for the one or two that’d been simply ‘Leckie’. He slotted in the latest one, but then found himself pausing. It took a second to move again, grabbing all those pages, and shoving the book back onto the shelf. 

Leckie moved to his desk. In his pocket was a small notepad he should, by now, have pulled out and flicked over to his latest set of shorthand. Not so much work, really, just something he wanted to do. Get his thoughts down, whatever they were, snippets from the war, older memories, things like that. But he wasn’t even thinking of the notepad now, focus set to the letters, the pages smelling half like already spent cigarettes and half like his room, like his books. Some of them he’d opened up in hospital, everything in him bruised and his thoughts sometimes fragmented. 

He’d been ‘Leckie’ those first couple of times, with Runner back in New York and kinda woozy on his leg and unable to do much with his left arm, and it had slipped a strange formality between them. Leckie could only imagine he’d called Runner ‘Conley’ in those first few letters, too, because all the serious talk warranted it.

He turned over the next few, the dates yawning wider, address moving from the hospital back to Rutherford until he landed on the latest one. Dear Peaches. He smiled when he saw it again.

“Sometimes my head gets patchy,” he’d said to Runner sometime during the weekend of his visit. 

Funny, but he’d expected some kind of joke from him at the time, except Runner had only looked at him with concern all over his face, and Leckie had found himself saying, “It’s better now,” and then he’d shoved at him a little. 

They’d been heading back from a meal out on the last evening of Runner’s stay, and the push had Runner stagger. Leckie had grabbed at him straight away, thinking about the airfield, the shot through the leg, and it had been an embarrassing muddle of limbs for a second, until they got themselves sorted, and Runner had laughed and shoved him back, and Leckie didn’t tell him about the relief that had coursed through him. 

Leckie wrote back that night. Two pages of non-news to match what he’d received, the topics ranging from the weather to what was happening in town. Not a lot of anything, really, but he padded it out as graciously as he could, knowing how Runner would sit down and read it all. Perhaps a little mean-spirited, but the meanness slipped away over the course writing it all out, haughtiness dulling into something friendly and familiar. 

_Dear Old Faithful_ , because it was only appropriate. _I’m writing to let you know about the game I attended and wrote about just last week. I’ve included a clipping, byline and everything_.

Leckie had folded up the letter and tucked it inside the envelope along with the clipping, sealed it and stamped on a stamp on it before he could think about what he wrote. 

“Dropping this off,” he said to his mother as he passed through the house again, retracing all the steps that had taken him up to his bedroom less than an hour before.

“But it’s dinner,” his mother protested.

“Save a plate for me.”

Runner’s response came shortly after he’d sent the letter off, and Leckie found it, like the first in their renewed chain, sitting on his typewriter. 

_Dear Peaches_ , it started. _Thank you for the clipping. I stuck it on my bedroom wall with my niece’s painting. She’s three, you know_.

+

“You look happier,” his mother said to him over dinner one night.

The observation came out of nowhere, and Leckie glanced at his father, found him busy with his meal, before looking at her.

“You do,” she insisted. “Have you been talking to Vera lately?”

Whatever expression Leckie had on his face creased into something else. He thought back, trying to find when, exactly, Vera had come into the conversation. Had his mother been talking about the Kellers? Had she mentioned something about catching them in the shops, or called greetings across the strip of road between them? He turned up nothing, and so he shrugged, taking another bite of mash, buttery and rich. 

“Not after that dinner,” he said. 

His mother had waited up for him that evening, not that she had to wait for too long. 

She must have remembered it, too, and turned her attention back to her meal, her fork scraping against the plate. A thin sound. Leckie prepared himself to speak. It’s fine, or something along those lines. No, mother, but I’m planning to have another go of things. Have you got my blues ready? He’d say it with a grin. But instead he allowed the moment to settle, the latent discomfort lingering for the rest of the meal.

+

_I think I’m going a little crazy here_ , he wrote in his letter that night.

 _How do you mean, crazy_ , Runner asked him in his next letter. _Bad crazy, good crazy_?

For a very real moment, Leckie wished he was here in the room with him. That Runner sat at the window and smoked, angling the stream outside. Maybe it would alleviate some of the stress of that day, the new jobs at his desk, and his editor wanting him to rewrite some articles. Normally Leckie wouldn’t have minded, but right now he felt like some cat who’d been scratched up the wrong way. 

“What do you mean, crazy,” Runner would ask, perched at his window to blow out smoke. The question offhand, but also curious. “Bad crazy, good crazy?”

“It’s a small house,” Leckie would tell him. 

Even with his sisters long gone, the walls were pressing up on him. Or maybe it was just Vera next door, the normality of her life out of reach to him. She seemed to haunt him like a ghost now, rather than a pleasant thought. Or maybe it wasn’t even that, just the sleeplessness and the dreams that chased him. 

The ones where he was back in Melbourne, the smell of lamb roasting in the kitchen coming out through the windows, strong enough to displace the rising scent of fresh herbs and soil in the garden where he was helping Stella’s father. Or the ones where he was still at Gloucester, boots heavy with mud, greens soaked to skin, the humidity never breaking though the storm had moved away. Or Peleliu, staggering across uneven ground in search for a radio and a corpsman.

Was it that? Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was the want for something more familiar than all this. This house, this street, his parents somehow turned unfamiliar to him, difficult to understand. Leckie had thought sometime after returning home, and after his injuries had settled, that he’d returned to as close to normal he could ever hope to get. But then when had he become satisfied with all this? This brand of normal, the resumption of his previous life? What do you want, he asked himself. If not this job, this house, another date? 

“It’s a small house,” he’d tell Runner. “And I need to get out.” Then he’d say, “But my mother thinks I’m doing alright,” and cast him a look, grinning.

+

Runner’s next letter was a thin one. Leckie flipped it over first to check the return address, somewhere between confused and disappointed, thinking that maybe it was only a quick note. Runner letting him know he had moved, and that there was another, thicker envelope on its way to him. But Runner hadn’t mentioned anything about moving in among everything else, so it wasn’t that, and the address on the back was the same, too.

Leckie took the letter to the window, where the last reaches of the sun had settled, autumn drawing in fast, and with winter on its heels. The leaves on the trees outside were mostly orange now, and already littering the lawn. The sunlight was too thin to provide any warmth, but it felt pleasant against his skin anyway. With a freshly lit cigarette, Leckie opened the letter. 

_Dear Peaches_ , it read in Runner’s neat and careful hand. _If things were still driving you bad crazy_. 

Tacked onto the end of the page was a clipping. 

Leckie read it over twice, brow creased like he had no idea what the print was saying. 

“What’s this,” he wanted to ask Runner. “Where’d you get it?”

Then Runner would ask him, equally confused, “From the paper.”

Outside, the last of the sun disappeared over the rooftops, and the air moved from cool to chill. Cigarette smoke tinged the air along with distant woodsmoke, and Leckie, not really thinking about it, finished the last of it off and stubbed it out. 

“Jesus Christ, Conley,” Leckie said. 

A part of him was tempted to fling the clipping out the window, and let the wind carry it away. But, standing there, even when he held out his hand, he found he couldn’t let it go. 

Down below a car parked on the other side of the street. The driver’s side door popped open, and a tall man stepped out, coming to pass across the front of the car to reach the passenger’s side door and open it. Vera stepped out, and for a moment both her and whoever had driven her, stood together on the sidewalk, chatting.

Leckie pushed away from the window, and shoved a hand through his curls. It wouldn’t hurt, he could hear Runner saying, it would get you outta here at least. And he’d say it so evenly, and so matter-of-factly, that Leckie couldn’t be annoyed. 

But Leckie was annoyed, and he couldn’t tell where his annoyance was directed. At himself, or at Runner for the clipping he’d sent him. Worse was that there wasn’t any distraction for it. No Hoosier to snipe at, no rifle to field strip. 

I like my job here, he could’ve said. Or he could’ve said something like that. Leckie didn’t know. 

His annoyance burned itself out over the weekend, and Leckie had almost forgotten about the letter and the clipping altogether until he found another letter waiting for him when he returned from work. He didn’t pluck it off his typewriter immediately, didn’t set himself up against the window to read it. Leckie just set the envelope -- thick this time -- and his coat aside, and fixed this and that, acting as if Runner stood there in his room, arms folded, and fit to burst with news. 

He idled long enough to feel silly about the entire thing, a little shamefaced, glad he was alone in his room. As a child his mother had sent him up here whenever he was in a mood and sulking, more eager to argue some senseless point, throwing himself down on whatever hill he’d chosen to die on, and then he’d pace or write or read, or sit at his window and breathe in whatever floated on the breeze until he had settled. Then he’d creep downstairs and wordlessly clear up any unwashed dishes sitting around, or hang out the washing, and that would be the last of it. Leckie supposed this wasn’t any different.

The letter, when he opened it, was another two pages of cramped hand. Runner talked about his past few work days, how busy it was at the dealership he worked at, some grievances with clients, the smell of new car leather; the weather, sunny days and grey days, how glad he was the season had turned into fall.

_I hate the heat_ , he wrote. _At least that very specific heat, where the air is heavy with water. What I mean is that I’ve since learned to appreciate the cold a little more. That’s all._

_Thinking of you, Robert Leckie._

_W Conley_.

Runner didn’t mention the clipping, not even in the vaguest sense. Leckie read the letter twice, and then once more before bed, before he leaned over and set it aside on the side table and turned off the lamp. The room plunged into darkness. 

I hate the heat, Runner had written. Slowly, Leckie’s eyes adjusted to the dark. The weak moonlight spilled in through the half opened window, shining against his desk, his typewriter, and striping up the wall. Leckie released his breath, and settled back against the pillow. I hate the dark, he thought. That very specific dark, where you can’t tell what’s hiding in it. It’s nicer and more comfortable to share with someone you know. Someone who can help you keep watch.

+

It still bugged him, Runner’s letter. During the day it was on his mind, and he’d find himself sitting at his work desk and staring at a half completed article, the words blurred on the page. Couple of times someone had asked him a question during one of these fixes, or had tried to hand him some documents, and Leckie hadn’t even noticed.

Or sometimes he’d be seated at the dining table at home, and he’d find his attention captured by the newspaper his father had left behind earlier that morning, the pages already creased and slipping out of place. Coffee in hand Leckie would start paging through, as if looking for something specific, and then he’d reach the end of the paper and there’d be a curious something sitting tight in his belly. 

It was like Vera all over again. How it was when Runner was in his sister’s bedroom, this man who’d been part of his life during another place and time now there, framed in Leckie’s childhood home, and familiar in it. 

Why don’t you ask me, he would’ve said. About Vera? No, he decided, not about Vera anymore. 

Time lengthened between letters. Leckie was especially aware of it. The emptiness of his evenings, the span of one day into the next. He did try. Some nights he stayed up, pen in hand, the point of it pressed to the paper, the _Conley_ that began the letter becoming blotted as the ink leaked just enough to spoil things. 

“What’s the matter,” his mother asked him one night over dinner.

She had the habit of catching him at that point of the day, easier now with just him at home. Breakfast was always too busy, with him and his father trying to leave for their respective jobs. But dinner? Leckie considered his plate, the peas neatly separated from the potatoes, the meat already gone, the rest drenched in gravy. 

“I was thinking,” he said. “About what they used to feed us back on those islands.”

Leckie took a forkful of peas. 

“Back on Gloucester we were tight for food,” he said, “and my buddy Hoosier went to find what he could and brought back this hardtack, or something like it, we never did find out what it was, but it was like trying to bite down on a slab of wood or something.”

His mother cast a glance to her husband, something Leckie pretended not to notice as he finished off the last of his plate.

“Spent the rest of the night thinking about your roast.” Leckie tried to curb the mean note in his voice, but he wasn’t certain if it worked. Probably not, considering the silence that settled at the table.

“How’s that friend of yours who came to visit,” his mother asked, as dinner that night came to an end, and as Leckie stood to leave, his cleared plate in hand. “Tell him ‘hello’ in your next letter, won’t you? It was nice to have the house a little more lively.”

+

_My mother says ‘hello’, which means you must have left a good impression behind, Conley. Probably because you helped in the kitchen. You know, I don’t think they’d mind if you came to live here if you’re going to be as helpful as that._

Leckie stared down at the words, the most of a letter he’d managed to pull together in the better part of the week. Aren’t you supposed to be a writer, he imagined Runner saying, the statement accompanied by a good natured nudge. 

He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling, where the light from his desk lamp cast a warm, soft glow. The idle craving for a cigarette settled in the back of his mind, and Leckie promised himself he’d have one as soon as the letter was done. 

Returning to the page he wrote: _I’ll be honest with you here, and admit that this letter has given me some grief. How many letters have you watched me write across those islands? How many did you watch me struggle with? Maybe it’s the sheer lack of anything to complain about._

_Here, watch. Tonight, I had a nice roast dinner, and then a smoke or two while the food settled. I had a glass of clean water, cool from the tap. The radio was playing like it did when you were here._

_Do you see? What’s there to complain about? That there wasn’t enough meat on my plate, or that the radio was playing the wrong songs? Those are barely complaints, not when I know there’s another slice or two in the roasting dish, and that the song will finish soon enough, and then perhaps after it will be something more interesting, something with a bit more ‘razz’, as my father would say._

_Let me start again: Today was fine. It’s getting colder, and the leaves on that tree outside have turned more leaves than ever. It’s gold outside my bedroom window. I think you’d like that. Already I’ve started pulling out the coats and jackets, a scarf or two. They used to kid us on Parris Island that us northerners couldn’t handle the cold, but there is something to be said about the comfort in bundling up in cooler weather._

_Work today was unremarkable. I’ve attached another article so you can read it for yourself, but I’ll tell you here it’s a decent read, and not a bad game of sport either. Please note the last two sentences._

_I think I know why this letter has been difficult, and I’m going to put it out here, since this is the only way to talk to you while you’re all the way there in Buffalo. You sent me that want ad almost a week ago now, and in your last letter, you didn’t write a word of it. You sent that ad, didn’t you? Because I’d said this was a small house, and that I was sick of it. It looked like your writing, and your address was on the back. It had to be from you._

_Conley, I can’t figure out if you’re wanting me to consider the advert, or if you meant it as a joke. More than that, I can’t figure out if I want to consider the advert, or to think of it as a joke; a scrap of paper to laugh at, and then throw in the trash and forget about._

_But maybe I’m doing this all wrong. Overthinking it when the decision should’ve been an impulse, the same way enlisting was. Maybe that’s the answer, that I should’ve made a decision the moment I received that letter, and I guess we’ll have to find out if it’s too late now to do something about it._

_You understand me, don’t you?_

+

The last of the week passed by in a smooth kind of haze, and through the haze was a sense of anticipation and excitement, not knowing how things would play out, not exactly, but keen for the experience anyway.

He never sent the letter. Instead, Leckie kept it in the pocket of his jacket as he dropped briefly into work on Friday, and then took it with him on the train.

+

It was late Friday night when he made it to where Runner lived, not too far out of the city of Buffalo. The taxi driver dropped him off at the corner of the street, and Leckie stood there a moment, bag in hand, and watched it leave. The street lights shone brightly against the car’s yellow body, and the taillights glowed an unfriendly red in the dark. Then Leckie turned and considered the building he’d arrived at, a collection of red brick townhomes. A sign planted on the lawn declared the name of the complex.

Taken together, it was quaint, and charming in its way. Different yet also the same to what he’d imagined during the train ride; the broad strokes correct where the details weren’t. Most of the street had small houses, made of wood or brick, but with the same serious-faced design. Across the street looked to be a park, the path dimly lit. It was easy to imagine Runner in all this, easier now Leckie had some idea of how he was as a civilian.

His image of him from the war was of someone always slightly rushed, as if Runner was forever on the cusp of breaking into that medal winning run. But now he knew him when he took his time, too, didn’t he? He had a good idea of Wilbur Conley, his likes and dislikes, how he moved and how he spoke; Leckie knew what he looked like dawdling on the streets, back unburdened, no heavy bag or rifle slung across his shoulder, and he liked how that looked on him.

Leckie now knew what he dressed in a plain shirt and jeans, and knew what it was like when Runner stood in his, in Leckie’s, childhood bedroom, and how easy and comfortable he was within those four walls. It was only fair and right for Leckie to know what Runner looked like in the context of where he lived, too. Learn him there, find out those details missing from the bigger picture, put them into place, correct any misconceptions, and then see how he himself fit there, too. 

This in mind, Leckie found his door and knocked on it. Then he waited. Impatience made him knock a second time, and then stand back to find the windows. A light glowed faintly in one, as if shining from a different room. His excitement cooled, and took the prickly shape of apprehension. 

It was late on a Friday night, and sometimes on a Friday Leckie stayed late at work, wanting to get his train of thought down on paper lest he lose it over the weekend. Other times he caught a cab into town, and found a bar and people to have fun with. Runner might not have asked about Vera, but had he asked about anyone, too? 

_You have a girl back home, Conley?_ Had he really not asked that? _Jeez, you haven’t married yet. Thought about it?_ All Runner would have to do is don a uniform, or his own dress blues, take up an invite to one of those parties or events, and he’d have no trouble catching anyone’s eye. Leckie could almost hear himself say it: Why wouldn’t someone want to look at you?

Everything seemed to dim, something vague and awful building in him. It was like Stella all over again, the rejection sharp and painful, mired in conflicting shock and relief. 

What then, if Runner had someone with him? Would Leckie smile, and tell him, _Oh, I was only stopping by_ , and then find the next train back to New Jersey? Would his stomach heave the same way it had with Stella? Would the relief and shock and disappointment rear up? But then maybe it would depend on who the other person was, wouldn’t it? Like how it had been with Vera. The competition measured up, found lacking, easily defeated. 

Before Leckie could stumble on any real answer, the door opened. The brief spike of the expected surprise and the maybe panic doused itself at the sound of Runner’s voice, and the way he said, “Jesus Christ,” in a voice almost an entire register higher.

Leckie grinned at him, ignoring the bright spots in his eyes from the sudden light. Runner stood there, staring. He started to say something one or two times, but when nothing came of it, Leckie said, “I was in the area,” and then, with an excess of false concern, “You thinking of slamming the door on me there, Conley?”

That seemed to work, and Runner stepped back, still staring. The apartment was small, and dated. The roof was low, and the paint was dull, and Runner hadn’t done much in terms of kitting the place out. A squashy sofa sat in the living room, and a small table was parked in front of it. The light from the window had come from a lamp, casting a glow limited to the sofa. Leckie pushed aside the lighter and cigarettes on the table, and took the novel Runner had left there. He glanced over the cover, and turned it over, aware of how Runner looked at him the entire time. 

“Likes his adverbs, this one,” Leckie said, setting the book back down.

“Sure,” Runner said, a beat later. Then, “What’s an adverb.”

There was a smile on Runner’s face now, commingled with his confusion. He looked as if he hadn’t done the very same thing himself, turning up unannounced at Leckie’s front door to then revel in Leckie’s surprise.

Leckie set down his bag, and retrieved one of the letters he’d folded into his back pocket. He held it out. It was interesting to watch Runner’s face, the way his brow creased up as he accepted the letter, and the following recognition. He opened up the envelope and took out the advert, flipping it over as if expecting to find something more on the back, perhaps thinking Leckie had added a note or two. 

Then looking up he said, “What’s this?”

“Oh,” Leckie said, overly casual even though his heart was racing. “Looked like a job ad to me.”

“Yeah?”

The small lamp cast a yellow glow across everything. Runner must have been curled up on the couch when Leckie had knocked, reading that book. Leckie could see him, the way he focused on the page, taking a break here and there to smoke. He liked the way that looked in his mind, everything about the image, this room, warm and comfortable.

“I was thinking of answering it, maybe,” Leckie said, continuing whatever it was they were doing.

He didn’t have an exact name for it, this thing they were doing, but the awareness of it tingled through him either way.

“Yeah?” Runner said again. “So that’s what got you all the way up to Buffalo, then?”

From outside came the sound of a car ambling up the street, and Leckie got the feeling they were waiting for it to pass before continuing, as if the car and the person in it had any way to eavesdrop on their conversation. The car must have parked in some driveway, or turned a corner, because the rumbling engine disappeared completely more than it faded away. 

Then Runner said, “You got somewhere to stay?” before Leckie could pick up where they’d left off.

There wasn’t any time to divert the conversation back to where it was, with Runner telling him, Sorry, he didn’t have any guest bedrooms or anything like that, but there was the couch. And there was something aggrieved on his face as he said it, or maybe it was more embarrassment. Whatever it was, the expression was there and gone again before Leckie could work it out, soothed away into another one of Runner’s grins. He shrugged.

“Wouldn’t have hurt to let a guy know you were coming,” he said.

“So now you know what it’s like,” Leckie said. 

“Oh, that wasn’t necessarily a complaint,” Runner said, and he left the room before Leckie could respond.

It was more than a little frustrating, this, and nothing like Leckie had imagined. Sure, there was that selfish relief in seeing Runner being here by himself, with nothing in the room even slightly suggesting company. No extra sets of shoes lined up against the wall, no coats either too big or too small thrown across the couch, or hung over some chair. It was also interesting to see Runner in striped pyjama pants and a plain tee shirt, his hair cut a little shorter than it had been a month or so ago. 

More than that, Leckie could read no discomfort or annoyance on him, something like it maybe, or closely related. It felt like they were having half a conversation somehow, or that Runner was sidestepping the issue, keeping some form of restraint where Leckie only knew him to be open. It wasn’t coyness, not completely. 

What had this been like in his imagination again, all during his trip down? A brighter smile perhaps? The pressure of Runner’s hands at his shoulders, warm and steady? Some ready admission, or statement. _Leckie, I sent that to you because..._

Runner returned with some sheets and a pillow. His shirt sleeves rode up a little when he set the couch up, the scar tissue shining dull in the lamp light. It still made Leckie a little breathless to see it.

“It’s nothing much,” Runner said, once he was done.

“It’s fine.” Leckie said it automatically, barely glancing at the set up.

Runner hesitated, his smile dipping somewhere between pleased and shy. “You spent all day on the train, then?”

“It feels like I’m still on it,” Leckie admitted. “Everything’s vibrating.”

Runner laughed. “Yeah, it gets that way. I’ll let you sleep.”

Neither of them moved. Leckie was the first to, taking the soft pack and the lighter on the table.

He held them up. “Cigarette?”

“You realise those are mine, right?”

Leckie shrugged, and lit two up, passing the second to Runner who accepted, moving to settle on the floor beside the sofa while Leckie stretched himself out on it. The cushions sank beneath his weight, and the tightness of his muscles gave a little. Smoke curled up to the ceiling, and the crisp sound of burning paper filled the room. He watched as Runner took his time to savour the cigarette. Here and there, between other lines of conversation, he asked him questions. 

How long do you think you’ll stay? What do you think of Buffalo? Did you like the trip up? They were careful questions that were far too casual, far too vague, far too something to be taken at face value. Runner asked them without looking at him, overly invested in his cigarette. 

Anyone else, and Leckie wouldn’t have the patience for it. For the carefully worded questions, or for the uncertain distance Runner set between them. But here he let the moment unfold, watching Runner with the same brand of care with which Runner spoke. And like that he saw the line of Runner’s jaw, the set of his mouth, and the easy way he moved, demonstrating with his hands some further point, sometimes interrupting his own stories to laugh. It was like all those nights in the Pacific, where they’d talked for hours in the quiet dark.

He didn’t know how long they talked for. Long enough for their cigarettes to burn into nothing. Long enough that Runner leaned against the sofa, his head resting short of Leckie’s thigh. Leckie thought about reaching out and pushing his fingers through the soft fall of Runner’s hair, but then Runner stirred, and started to come to a stand. He winced at the effort of it, muscles gone stiff and numb. 

“It’s late,” he said. “I should let you sleep.” There was a pause, then, carefully, offhandedly, “Night, Peaches.”

“Night, Old Faithful,” Leckie said, belatedly.

Runner threw a smile over his shoulder as he stepped out of the room, so full of naked affection that it almost winded Leckie. It shouldn’t have, really, because that was how Runner always smiled at him.

It took a second for Leckie to gather himself, and prepare for bed. His thoughts were a tumult, and his hands were shaking, the earlier confusing flux of anticipation, confusion, and excitement rushing through him once more, like in those moments he’d stood outside Runner’s front door. 

Was this how Runner had spent his stay in Rutherford? Feeling out the edges of their relationship beyond the war, learning the shape of it in this new context. Testing what it could be, carefully asking questions to see how they would be answered, all while trying not to give himself way? 

Oh, Runner, Leckie thought fondly. Oh, Runner.

He came across the letter he’d written back in Rutherford while putting away his clothes. Runner’s address was scrawled across the front. Leckie remembered writing it, and it felt to him almost a lifetime ago. Buffalo, New York, just some place he’d never been, and that was only known to him because Runner lived there.

Leckie opened the envelope, and removed the pages. He read it all again with the weight of new knowledge, remembering his old confusion, trying to condense everything down into a way he could manage in words. Leckie found a pen at the bottom of his bag, and he wrote at the very end of the page: _Or maybe I wanted you to ask me yourself. ‘Why not come to Buffalo, Peaches. Come to my house, and stay with me, and we’ll figure it out.’ That was what you’d meant, isn’t it, Runner? Well, I’m here. So let’s figure it out._

+

The weekend passed by barely noticed, and it was only until Sunday evening that Leckie realised he had the interview for the position in the ad the next morning. The Buffalo paper wasn’t necessarily a bigger, or a more widely circulated print than where he previously, rather currently, worked, but this didn’t make it any less important.

After dinner they moved to the back door and sat on the two steps that led out to the small square of lawn. The day had settled into dusk, the sky overhead a dark shade of blue carrying on it a hint of stars. It was quiet and still, and in the air was the smell of fresh grass and cooking food wafting from over the fence. It was comfortable, and cool, maybe a little colder than Rutherford. Runner had bought a couple beers earlier that day, and had them to chill in an ice box all afternoon.

“What’re you gonna do if you get the job?” Runner asked, passing Leckie a beer.

The cold glass sent goosebumps up both arms.

“Not sure yet,” Leckie said. 

Runner’s brow creased in confusion, and when he spoke it was a careful, “Alright.”

“Why.” Leckie grinned. “What do you think I should do, Conley?”

Runner glanced away, took a swig of his beer, but Leckie saw he’d reddened somewhat. He wasn’t so tanned anymore, skin paler than it had been during the pacific, so the colour showed easily, fanning across his cheeks. 

“You know, my ma always told me to do whatever I felt was the right choice,” Runner set down his bottle. “Provided that it kept a roof over your head.”

Leckie twisted to look up at the roof. The angle was all wrong, and he saw nothing but the porch ceiling they were sitting under, pale in the light, shadows cut here and there by the moths. 

“It’s not a bad roof,” Leckie agreed anyway, turning back.

Runner looked at him sidelong. “It doesn’t leak,” he said. “Place I looked at before this one had leaks all through it. You interested?”

“In what? The house with the leaking roof? After Gloucester?” Leckie shoved him, grinning.

A smile crossed Runner’s face. “Not the leaking house then,” he said.

“Not the leaking house.”

Silence settled, and after a moment, Runner finished off his beer and moved to stand. The porch creaked and groaned a little under his weight. Leckie followed him, trailing after Runner as they headed to the kitchen to dispose of their bottles. They’d washed up after dinner earlier, with Leckie volunteering since Runner had put together a meal, and the plates drying in the rack were almost ready to store back into the cupboards. Leckie’s heart panged to see it all.

“It is,” he said, looking away from the dull shine of the plates to Runner, familiar, and dear, and here with him.

“Huh?”

“It is a nice house,” Leckie said. “I like it.”

+

The evening eased into night. From the window of the living room, Leckie could see the shape of the houses across the street, the windows there bright with light, and occasionally crossed with the silhouettes of those who lived inside. To the very far right, and almost out of view, was the bulk of a tree, and the shadow of it turned the lawn outside Runner’s window almost black, like a sort of negative space surrounded by blue-green grass. A foxhole, a trench, the shadow of an overhanging rock. Leckie drew the curtain shut, and pushed it easily from his mind.

The night passed by in idle talk and shared cigarettes. Leckie moved around in a lazy circuit, from the sofa to the window, as he spoke, and Runner watched him from where he sat, amused. 

“You remember that time when Hoosier brought back the hardtack, do you?” Leckie had asked, at one point.

“God,” Runner had said, “what were those made of anyway?”

“Wood,” Leckie’d said, “plasterboard, concrete, take your pick.”

“Bit of all of it, I think.”

Leckie just lit up another cigarette, and grinned at him.

“I should let you sleep,” Runner said, finally, some time later, “with your interview tomorrow.”

He leaned forward from where he sat on the sofa, and butted out the last of his cigarette. Then he stood, stretched, ran a hand through his hair, and said, “I leave early in the morning. I won’t wake you, so, good luck. Not that you’ll need it,” Runner continued, as if to make up for the way his voice had gone all soft with his ‘good luck’. “Knowing you, you’ll just turn up and let them know you’re there, and they’ll have a desk ready for you and everything.”

Leckie asked, “You think I’m that good, huh?”

“Ass,” Runner said, his smile a little embarrassed.

“Hey,” Leckie said, “Conley?”

Runner paused just at the door way, and turned back, brow creased in question.

Leckie said, “I don’t think I asked you if you have anyone here in Buffalo.”

There was a brief, considering pause before Runner said, “No, I don’t. Why you asking?”

Leckie grabbed where he’d set the letter earlier that evening, tossed on top of the book still sitting on the coffee table. The one Runner hadn’t even looked at since Leckie had turned up.

“Here,” Leckie said, holding it out. “I never got the chance to send this. Figured what’s the point since I was coming to visit you anyway.”

Runner hesitated, before crossing the room to accept it. He looked at his name and address on the front, then turned it over. Leckie watched his face as Runner read the return address, the confusion that settled on his features, followed by mild amusement, something soft and fond. 

“Leckie,” he said, “you realise you’re right here. You can tell me anything you want to.”

So could you, Leckie wanted to say. You can tell me anything, you can ask me anything. But instead he moved to sit on the sofa, grinned up at Runner, and shrugged his shoulders. ‘What are you gonna do’ in a gesture. ‘Guess I didn’t think of that, huh’. Leckie’s heart was a steady beat against his ribs, and a sense of impatience rose up in him, but he forced himself calm, still. 

“Night,” he said.

“Night,” Runner said, not even looking at him, eyes still fixed on the envelope.

The room was silent after he left, and for a long while, Leckie only sat there looking at the shadowed doorway, mapping out the short distance to Runner’s room. Some fifteen steps, if that. A doorway, a couple of strides, another doorway. He’d been there earlier, trailing after Runner as they talked about Hoosier and Chuckler. Runner had gone to his room, and Leckie had wandered straight in after him.

“Chuck said he got a new job,” Runner was saying, looking for this and that as Leckie had sat on the bed. “You got his letter?”

“Yeah, I got his letter,” Leckie said.

But he had said it not really hearing what he was responding to, too busy taking in the details of Runner’s room. The sparse walls, and the personal items littered about the place. There was less clutter than Leckie’s own room, no real keepsakes around, only practicalities. A couple of books, a couple packets of cigarettes. Clothes folded on the bed ready to be put away. Leckie couldn’t figure out if it was because Runner hadn’t had the time to fill the room all up, or because this was Wilbur, or because Runner couldn’t shake off the idea of necessities only, his bedroom and his house just some larger version of his kit, kitchen sink included this time. He didn’t know, but he wanted to.

He wondered how long it would take him to read the letter. Leckie remembered all the times Runner had received correspondence from home, how he’d disappear for a while to read it. Leckie knew how it all went. The careful, impatient way Runner would open up a letter, and the time he’d take to go through it, taking in every word. He’d read it a couple of times first, take a break, light up a cigarette, and then go back to it, just in case he missed something. Then he’d take it all and relay the contents, telling him, or Hoosier, or Chuckler, or the lot of them what was happening back home, laughing over the stories, sharing any food that had accompanied the post. 

The minutes became long, passing into each other. Leckie grew tired, started to think that Runner had saved reading the letter after all, because he sometimes did that, too, waiting for some cue Leckie could never figure out before opening it. 

From outside came the ambling of a car, the passing of headlights. Leckie turned off the ceiling light, plunging the room into darkness, and settled again onto the couch. He saw, as his eyes adjusted, the dim glow in the hallway where Runner was still awake. Leckie thought he could hear him moving, the faint rhythm of his steps as if he were pacing back and forth, and it felt as though his heart followed the same pace. 

He’d meant to wait up, but the warmth and comfort of the pillow and sofa had pushed Leckie into sleep before he even noticed. One moment awake, and the next he was being woken, a warm hand pressed to his shoulder. Leckie half-rose, heart beating in his throat, a hand casting out to find his rifle. 

“It’s me, it’s me,” Runner was saying. 

He was down on his knees, hand still at Leckie’s shoulder. His brow was creased up, and his mouth was an even line. His eyes looked dark in the low light. Leckie couldn’t figure out what the expression meant, still only half awake, the other half of him somewhere in the pacific and thinking it was his turn on watch.

Runner squeezed where his hand rested like he knew this, waiting until Leckie gathered his bearings, until he took a breath and released it. The room stilled and quieted. Runner’s hand remained where it was, thumb tucked against his collar bone; a comfortable pressure.

“I wanted you to come,” Runner said, finally, in a voice no louder than their breathing. “I sent you that ad because I wanted you to come, but I never thought you would, Leckie. I didn’t--... 

“What do you mean,” he asked very carefully, “in your letter, what did you mean?”

Carefully, Leckie pushed up, coming to sit on the sofa proper. Runner sat back to allow him the room, hand slipping from Leckie’s shoulder to rest on his thigh. The heat of his hand burned through the fabric of his pajama pants. Moving slowly, Leckie set his hand on top of Runner’s.

“Jesus Christ, Leckie.” The words tumbled out of him, somewhere between incredulous, and exasperated, and pleased. “Jesus Christ, you’ve been here the entire weekend, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why didn’t you ask me?”

The look Runner gave him was unimpressed, and Leckie just smiled and said, “You know I’m better with writing.”

Runner let out a breath and shook his head. The slice of moonlight coming in from the window fell against him, settling into his frown. Looking at his face, Leckie finished his earlier sentence for him: I never thought you’d come. I never thought you’d want it. But he did, he just didn’t realise it. He had never put it together.

It was easy to reach for him, to take his hands Runner’s face, swipe his thumb across his cheek, and then draw him in. Runner went easily, smelling like toothpaste, and soap, and sleep, and very faintly of cigarettes. He smelled clean, and good, and familiar. Leckie knew him, he wanted to keep knowing him. Runner was warm in Leckie’s hand. And in the dark, on the couch, in the muddle of borrowed bed sheets, Leckie kissed him. Again. And again. And again.

+

He got the job. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
